Wednesday, March 26, 2008

this little man had his two month checkup today, and it was a traumatic experience for all involved. let me just say this - vaccinations suck. i mean, i'm sure they're preferable to the various bacterial and viral infections they're protecting him against, but it sucks to hold your baby still (or try to, anyway) while a nurse pokes him repeatedly with a needle (actually, 4 different needles, not the same needle over and over). especially when he starts emitting high-pitched screams as soon as the first needle pokes him, and then he proceeds to turn purple and stop breathing for a few seconds between said high-pitched screams (but with his face still scrunched up like he's screaming, only silently), and this continues well after the poking and injecting are through.

the rotavirus vaccine was ok - it was given by mouth, and max thought it was pretty tasty.

other than the pain and screaming from the injections, max's doctor's appointment went well. he's 23 inches, 11 lbs. 8 oz. now (so he's gaining about an ounce a day). that puts him in the 50th percentile for size compared to other two-month old babies, and his height and weight are still in perfect proportion, so i guess he's not going to be one of those super-chubby babies covered in cute little fat rolls. my brother was one of those babies. i was not. oh well. it just means that max will be able to wear all his clothes for a long time instead of growing out of them practically overnight, despite his fairly rapid growth rate.

something else to mention is max's teeny tiny little head. it doesn't look tiny. i think it looks huge (well, compared to how small it was when he first popped out) and in good proportion with his body. but his head circumference (38 cm) is only in the 10th percentile. so 90% of two month old babies have bigger heads than max!

his tiny head isn't a bad thing, though. he's doing everything he's supposed to be able to do at this age - and some things that a lot of three month old babies can't do yet (like bat at toys on purpose, roll onto their sides, and hold their heads steady for long periods of time). by his next checkup at 4 months, max will be able to roll all the way over onto his tummy and grasp objects and put them in his mouth. he already coos and babbles up a storm, and he smiles at us frequently. overall, he's a pretty happy kid.

i must say, his sleeping habits have also improved dramatically. for the past four or five nights, max has been sleeping for a minimum of 5 hours at a time after i lay him down in the crib. when he wakes up at 4 or 5:00 a.m., he doesn't want to go back to sleep, but 5 consecutive hours of sleep are much better than 5 or 6 interrupted hours of sleep. and last night, max pretty much slept all night! for the first time! and i was worried when i woke up at 5:35 (all by my lonesome, not because i heard a noise) and realized that max hadn't made a peep yet! and we'd gone to bed at 11:00. so i had to get up and check on him. and he was snoozing away in his crib, perfectly fine. then he got whiny at 5:45, so i went ahead and got up with him. it was pretty crazy, waking up on my own instead of to a crying baby. it's been forever since that happened - like since before max was born.

he's even sleeping right now. he's slept an awful lot today, actually. i think it's all those shots. fever is a common side effect of three out of five vaccines he received today, and pain/swelling at the injection site is common in two of them (only one looks swollen, though). the rotavirus vaccine can sometimes cause diarrhea or vomiting, but so far so good. the doc advised me to go ahead and give him some infant tylenol when we got home, and i just gave him another dose, so we're pretty much trying to preempt any fever that might develop (and relieve the pain in the poor baby's legs). he's been a little fussy, but mostly max has just been sleepy today. he should be pretty much back to normal by tomorrow night.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

wow, it's been a long time, dudes. there are SO MANY THINGS i have wanted to blog about lately, but i just have not had the time since i went back to work. well, since i started going back to the lab, anyway. max goes to the lab with me on thursdays and fridays, and that's working out really well - he's pretty much been a perfect little angel while i do what i have to do, and i've even avoided any screaming fits during diaper changes while we're there. actually, he's never pitched a screaming fit when i've changed him in public - ever. i know, i'm as surprised as you are.

since i don't have time for details, here are the highlights of what i've wanted to blog about for the past few weeks:

while he has not actually outgrown anything yet, max is probably going to outgrow one of his sleepers and two pairs of his newborn size pants soon

max is getting huge - he is hovering somewhere near 11 lbs now - i'll know exactly how much he weighs next wednesday when i take him for his 2 month checkup.

here's a picture of him napping in his swing, taken about 5 minutes ago.

see? i told you so - huge.

ignore the fact that both those pants and that t-shirt are size newborn.

i am about to stop buying newborn diapers, although they do still fit him

i am afraid that if i go buy two more weeks worth of newborn diapers, he will outgrow them suddenly, and i will be stuck with 80-160 newborn diapers

plus, size 1 diapers don't completely swallow him anymore

and we have 3 packs of size 1 diapers that we've had since before he was born

but we haven't used any yet because until now they've been massively huge on him

and pee cannot be contained in a massively huge diaper

some more stuff, not directly related to max (but still sort of in the max ballpark), that i've also been dying to vent about:

my MIL loves max to death

but she kind of makes me crazy

because she doesn't listen

i don't want other people to 'clean' my house

especially when 'cleaning' just involves taking some stuff from one place and putting it in another place

that's what i want you to do when you're alone in my house watching my kid

closed doors = don't go in there

right?

you know that, don't you?

then why do some people think that just because they're alone in your house watching your kid (which is much appreciated) they can go into rooms and do things that they wouldn't do if you were home?

rooms with closed doors

the road to hell is paved with good intentions

and good intentions are driving me crazy

my MIL brings MORE STUFF for max EVERY WEEK when she comes over to baby-sit

our house is not that big

max is too young to know what the stuff is or to appreciate that it is for him, and he's rapidly accumulating more stuffed animals than i know what to do with

i should never have told her i like monkeys

she's really gone overboard with the monkeys

she will buy anything if it has a monkey on it, regardless of whether we need it or already have two of them

i don't like things whose sole purpose is taking up space and looking cute

if my kid is going to wear a special holiday outfit, i want to be the one to pick it out

she had her kid, and therefore her chance to dress him in special outfits

max is NOT her kid

he is MINE

and i am a possessive bee-otch

i like things a CERTAIN WAY

and i don't take it well when that certain way is messed with

babies need naps

sometimes they don't want to take naps

and they get cranky

so sometimes you just have to hold and rock a baby for forever to make him take a nap

because staying awake ALL DAY?

does NOT help him sleep at night

it actually makes the sleeping thing harder for him

and i'm the one who gets to deal with the cranky baby who can't stay asleep

so when i say the baby needs to take naps during the day or go to bed around 9:00, he really does need to

he will be cranky at 9:00 because he's had a long day with someone in his face talking all day, and he needs to wind down

so you have to walk around with him and talk to him in a soft and soothing voice until he falls asleep

letting him stay awake until 11:00 because playing with him keeps him happier than putting him to sleep doesn't make the putting him to sleep any easier

it actually just makes it that much harder because it's two hours later, and now mommy can barely hold her eyes open and doesn't really have the patience or the energy to put the cranky baby to sleep - and it means that mommy gets less sleep than she otherwise would

and mommy needs every minute of sleep she can possibly manage

so the baby? he needs to go to bed around 9:00. or even 8:00 if he seems sleepy then.

Current Reading

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Current Audiobook

Percy Jackson and the Olympians The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Recommended Reading

Angels & Demons by Dan BrownThe Talisman by Stephen King and Peter StraubSeize the Night by Dean KoontzThe Dark Tower Series by Stephen KingOdd Thomas series by Dean KoontzStephanie Plum series by Janet EvanovichGoldy Schulz series by Diane Mott DavidsonJack Daniels series by J.A. KonrathThursday Next series by Jasper Fforde